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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26204221">A time when time stood still</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/judyannhale/pseuds/judyannhale'>judyannhale</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dead To Me (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>And then they kissed, F/F, Fake Dating, School Reunion AU, jen being grumpy and drunk, judy's old school</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:48:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,683</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26204221</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/judyannhale/pseuds/judyannhale</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jen rolled her eyes with a knowing smile. "Of <i>course</i> you had a crush on your art teacher."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Judy Hale/Jen Harding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>123</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A time when time stood still</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>shoutout to the laguna beach chat for the prompt :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"There's free wine?" Jen’s face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning, one who'd just discovered a box too big to even fit under the tree.</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"Why the fuck didn't you lead with that?"</p><p>Judy laughed. "It's a gathering. What did you expect?"</p><p>"I don't know." She shrugged. It was in a school, after all. Apparently that was a big deal - having it in the actual school rather than in a hotel or something. "Aren't you all gonna bust out your old yearbooks and sing <em> kumbaya</em>?"</p><p>Judy’s head tilted to the side. "That sounds a bit culty."</p><p>"Perfect for high school," Jen muttered under her breath as she followed Judy into the crowded room. Between her and the wine stood maybe a hundred people who terrified and disgusted her in equal measure - the kind of people who showed up to high school reunions. Gross.</p><p>Unsurprisingly, she’d never gone back to her old high school. She’d walked out the doors after their final graduation assembly thinking <em> thank fuck that’s over</em>, and moved on with her life. Like any normal person would.</p><p>Unfortunately, that definition of normal didn’t extend to her best friend. As soon as Judy - all smiles and excitement, of course - got the email about her twenty-five-year reunion, it had been a firm <em>no </em> from Jen. <em> No</em>, followed by <em> Jesus, isn’t every ten years enough? </em></p><p>And if Judy was really all that upset, Jen didn’t see it. Maybe she wasn’t thrilled to be going to another reunion alone, but she didn’t want to put Jen out - always careful not to ask for too much.</p><p>Besides, Jen was busy dealing with a stressful week of her own. Lorna losing a sale meant she had time to constantly breathe down her neck, pointing out everything she was doing wrong and eventually proposing that they attend this <em>dumb fucking real estate seminar thing</em> together.</p><p>"I can’t." Her reply was almost instinctive, false disappointment plastered all over her face. Anything was better than fucking weekend plans with Lorna, and the excuse was right on the tip of her tongue before she could really register the consequences. "We’ve got Judy’s high school reunion. Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask you if you could take the boys."</p><p>And that was that. She’d ended up in some smelly old gym on a Saturday afternoon, and until she’d found out about the wine situation she really wasn't sure it was worth it. A grotty old high school or realtor class with Lorna - now that’s a real Sophie’s choice<em>. </em></p><p>She made a beeline for the wine - trying her best to ignore the sickening playlist of songs she hadn't heard in twenty years and the strange feeling of PTSD that came from being in a high school gym again, especially one with the lights low. The room itself was as depressingly middle-aged as its occupants, still trying for some sense of prom-night beauty and failing miserably. After gulping down a whole glass and grabbing two more from the drinks table, her eyes darted around the crowded room to find Judy.</p><p>Of course she’d already found an entire group of people to talk to. Jen arrived by her side just in time to hear the end of a conversation about this woman’s joint facebook page with her husband Brad… Seriously<em>? </em></p><p>She learned - not by choice - that they <em> weren’t sure about all this social media, but they gave in once they realized how lovely it is to have somewhere to share photos of the kids. </em></p><p>"Thank you." Judy smiled at Jen as she was handed a glass of wine - even she was grateful for the distraction. She didn't say anything about the other half of Jen’s, which seemed to have mysteriously vanished during her short walk over to find them. She was going to be stuck there for hours, okay?</p><p>"Oh, Jen, this is Beth," Judy said, gesturing between them. "Beth, Jen."</p><p>"Hi."</p><p>Beth looked confused, or maybe just surprised, for a moment. That was just fine, because it gave Judy a chance to pull out her phone to show off photos of the boys before Jen could be sucked into any nauseating small talk. It made her smile - the way Judy had probably a thousand photos with Henry, and even a few rare shots of Charlie actually smiling , and the way she always looked at them with such pride.</p><p>At least, she was smiling until Beth decided it was a good time to ask some far too personal questions about how they'd had the boys, and Judy, suddenly flustered, had to explain that they’re really Jen’s, biologically speaking.</p><p>"I’m sorry." Maybe the bitterness of the wine was already getting to Jen, or maybe Beth’s sympathy really was as plastic as it seemed. "I know you always wanted kids."</p><p>Judy only looked slightly heartbroken by that reminder.</p><p>"She does have kids," Jen cut in, snaking a protective arm around her waist just in case she needed a little support. She loved the way Judy’s whole face still lit up whenever she heard that, even after all that time taking better care of the boys than Jen ever could have.</p><p>"Of course." Beth offered her most gritted-teeth smile before turning back to Judy. "You know, I hope this doesn’t sound weird, but there’s a few of us who always kind of thought Steve was made up." She said it like a joke, and it made sense to Jen right then that of course Steve had never bothered to come to one of these with Judy. Suddenly part of her was very glad she came because, you know, fuck Steve.</p><p>"I get it, I do," Beth continued, still apparently delighted by her funny little secret. "But I’m so glad you’ve finally found love. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without my Brad."</p><p>Jen was trying her hardest - for Judy’s sake - not to look like she was about to throw up. Who the fuck would even refer to their husband as <em> my Brad? </em>Who would even marry a Brad? That had to be one of the whitest, douchiest names on the fucking planet.</p><p>Meanwhile, Beth’s mistake had slowly been dawning on Judy, her face slowly glowing a pink-ish color as she realized she’d have to explain herself again. "Oh, no. We just-"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>Judy whipped her head around to the side, her startled eyes meeting calm ones. Jen offered her a shrug small enough that no one else would notice, silently telling Judy to <em> just go with it</em>. It only took her a second to understand. She shot Jen a grateful smile, turning back to Beth with a nod. She could feel Jen’s thumb stroking gently against her waist and leaned into it.</p><p>"Yes," Jen repeated, not sure what she was doing but absolutely certain she wouldn't let this bitch make Judy feel like she’d missed out on anything else. "I don’t know what I’d do without Judy, either." Now that was the fucking truth.</p><p>"Neither do I." Judy smiled back at her so widely - the whole being together thing hardly took much pretending. They both stared at each other for a second, enjoying their little white lie. It’s not like this was the first time someone had made that mistake, anyway.</p><p>But before Jen knew what was happening, Judy’s deep brown eyes were hovering right in front of hers and their faces were creeping closer and closer together.</p><p>
  <em> Oh. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> That was fast. </em>
</p><p>Their first kiss wasn’t really a kiss at all - just a tiny peck on the lips - and in the moment it happened, it felt nice. There was even something about it that Jen liked, and she probably would have kissed back out of instinct if Judy had dared to stay any longer. But by the time she pulled away enough for their eyes to meet, it was a different story.</p><p>Jen’s face turned stiff, her eyes like a deer in headlights but angrier - because anger was always right there in situations when she didn't know what to do. She <em> hated </em> not knowing what to do.</p><p>Judy immediately shot her an expression akin to a silent apology, kicking herself for going too far like she always did. Especially after Jen had swooped in to save her like that.</p><p>So they were together, fake together at least, but no kisses. Obviously.</p><p><em> Okay, </em> she thought. <em> She could do that. </em></p><p>"Thank you," she whispered, holding onto Jen’s arm so she could lean in close as soon as Beth’s attention had shifted to another old friend she could force-feed stories about her little geniuses.</p><p>"No big deal." Jen shrugged. She walked backwards, pulling Judy away with her, and if they happened to be moving in the direction of the drinks table, well, that was a happy coincidence.</p><p>"What?" she asked, when Judy’s grateful expression refused to die down. "I'd rather be married to you than fucking Brad." She mimed throwing up on his name.</p><p>Judy giggled, but it turned into more of a loving stare as her words really sunk in - <em> I’d rather be married to you</em>.</p><p>Jen could see what she was thinking. She rolled her eyes. "It's not a high fucking bar."</p><p>It was mostly the wine that carried her through the hours that followed. Judy had plenty of catching up to do, so Jen followed as she flitted between groups and drank enough to make the conversations bearable. That turned out to be a lot, since Judy seemed to know every single person in the whole fucking gym.</p><p>There was the guy who broke into the art supplies with her one night and spray painted the school wall, then a whole group of them who apparently spent their prom night getting high and swimming in the sea in all their fancy clothes. There was even an old friend complaining about how exhausting her second pregnancy was compared to the first - she wasn’t quite bulging yet, but there was a definite bump - and how lucky Judy was to never have to go through it. Jen squeezed her hand extra tight through that talk. </p><p>She got to the point in the evening when she needed to curl up in front of the TV, and not speak to any more strangers for at least a few days, pretty quickly. It was exhausting - constantly being introduced, only half-following conversations, and hearing endless stories about a high school version of Judy who didn't quite seem like the same person as the one standing beside her.</p><p>With every old friend that came along, Jen found herself clinging onto her tighter. It was as if she had to prove to everyone with a supposed connection to Judy that she was still winning. Judy was her wife. Even if she wasn’t, really, she was still her person. That’s all she meant when she kept her arm around Judy’s waist as they talked, thumb stroking against her dress. And that’s why the soft brown head of hair leaning into her every so often made the small talk so much easier.</p><p>She’d been resisting the dance floor all evening - not that she didn’t love a dance in a bar where she was drunk and safe from judgement - but dancing at a school reunion was different. It was all in-jokes and songs she hadn’t heard in twenty years, and wine always got her to a more <em> ease the pain </em> kind of drunk than a <em> dance the night away </em> feeling.</p><p>Her avoidance was only broken when some asshole decided to play <em> We Go Together </em> (Yes, from <em> Grease</em>. Yes, gross.) and a whole crowd of ex-theater kids, Judy included, joined forces to loudly relive their senior musical.</p><p>Technically, Judy claimed to never have been a theater kid. She always helped with the sets, and once had been asked to step in as an understudy when the girl playing Frenchy broke her leg. The first time Jen had heard that story, she’d wanted to roll her eyes. She’d been in high school theater. No one would put a teenager on at the last minute when they didn’t even know the part. In her school, her teacher had gone on when a kid was throwing up backstage, and that was hectic enough. Sending on other kids only happened in movies when they wanted to make a hero out of some relatable girl who wasn’t talented enough to just get the part.</p><p>Except, apparently, it happened to Judy too. And apparently that meant they both had to go and dance in a crowd of idiots. Maybe Jen wasn’t thrilled about that, but she gulped down the rest of whatever glass of wine she was on by that point and did it anyway. She sure as fuck wasn’t going to let herself look like a bad dancer, and it didn’t hurt to see Judy’s eyes lighting up like that beside her, either.</p><p>They’d danced together before, but not really together<em>. </em> Not like this. Not as wives, or whatever the fuck they were supposed to be. Maybe the only change should have been on the surface - it was only a lie for her old classmates - but there was another shift far deeper than either of them cared to explain. Every time Judy grabbed her arm, and then every time Jen held her waist, and every time their eyes met, sparkling in the light of a cheap disco ball, there was something different. A rush that hadn’t been there before.</p><p>Or maybe it had. Maybe it was only now that they noticed the way they’d dance together in bars wasn’t so different from the way wives would. And neither was anything else they did. It was all real - the living together, the parenting, the way they’d share everything and feel safer than with anybody they’d ever known before.</p><p>Everything hit Jen at once, like it was brand new information, as if she really hadn’t noticed what they’d been doing until that very moment. Maybe she hadn’t. The music was too loud for her to remember. </p><p>Of course the realization had to hit here, where they were stuck keeping up an act that was probably still an act. And of course they had to be on a dance floor, with flashing lights dragging her out of reality and Judy just a few excruciating inches away, and the widest smile peeking out from under her messy bangs that made Jen’s heart leap every time she caught sight of it and-</p><p>
  <em> Fuck. </em>
</p><p>Their second kiss was a sort-of half kiss, just teetering on the edge of something real. The wine egged her on, as did the stares of everyone else who had to think they were together - stares that, in hindsight, were possibly imaginary. Still, Jen didn’t want to take any chances. Before she knew it she had her hand brushing through Judy’s hair, and then gently pulling her chin closer, and though it still didn’t feel intentional really her lips found Judy’s easily enough.</p><p>She was soft and silky and tasted like sweet wine, and Jen needed more. And that was okay, because all of a sudden Judy was kissing her back, and Judy needed more, too. Somehow it was more than okay, and Jen was clinging on for dear life, her brain still trying to play catch-up on whatever kind of miracle she was experiencing.</p><p>And thank fuck Judy hadn’t frozen the same way Jen had earlier. She wouldn’t have been able to handle that. Wide eyes and a soft smile and a beautifully shocked little exhale, though? That she could manage. <em> That </em> was fucking intoxicating.</p><p>It was all a very good act - surely no one in the whole gym could have guessed they were faking - and it was kind of perfect, being able to kiss like that without worrying about it at all. They were good at pretending. It didn’t have to be real. They could just have their beautiful moment and keep dancing, letting the memory live in that last chorus before their feet had to hit the ground.</p><p>As soon as they did, Jen let out an overly dramatic, wine-fueled groan.</p><p>"I fucking hate this song."</p><p>She’d recognized it instantly - the first few notes of <em> My Heart Will Go On</em>, a real jewel in the crown of eye-roll-worthy 90s songs that had been blaring all evening. She’d always hated it, and twenty years of being overplayed hadn’t exactly done it any favors.</p><p>Judy laughed at her reaction - she wasn’t ashamed to admit she’d always loved this song - but Jen’s face stayed sour through the first couple of lines and she wondered if it was time to call it a day on the dance floor.</p><p>"D’you wanna get out of here?" She leaned in close to Jen’s face to ask.</p><p>"Fuck yes."</p><p>Judy grinned, pulling her towards the double doors at one end of the room. "Come on, I wanna show you something."</p><p>Still holding hands - maybe because they wanted to or maybe to make sure Jen was still moving in the right direction - they snuck out of the gym. No one had said they weren’t allowed to leave, but with the lights off and the hallways ghostly empty it still felt kind of forbidden. Judy started up the stairwell, but Jen only made it up a few steps before collapsing sideways, almost twisting her ankle and landing on her ass with a painful thud.</p><p>"Fuck."</p><p>"Are you okay?"</p><p>"Fuck. Yes. I'm fine."</p><p>Judy smiled sympathetically. She crouched down, a few steps below Jen, and went to unbuckle the straps of her heels. Jen wasn’t sure if it was the wine, or maybe the infuriating pain in her back that drew out every second into an eternity, but Judy seemed to be moving so goddamn slowly. Her fingers grazed across the skin around her ankles, and every touch felt like it was on fucking fire.</p><p>As soon as her shoes were off, she pushed that thought - whatever it was - out of her mind.</p><p>Jen wasn’t sure how she made it up four flights of stairs without falling again - maybe she lost her balance a couple of times - but nothing could have torn her focus away from Judy. That staircase was so familiar, and her whole face lit up more and more the higher they climbed.</p><p>When they made it to the room at the top, the dim blue shafts of late-evening light coming in through the windows didn't illuminate much. It was only when Judy reached instinctively for the light switch and a fluorescent gold flooded the room that she felt it - the last twenty five years vanishing all at once.</p><p>Jen had to stop to take it all in. Art covered every inch of the walls - most of it awful, but each display had that one kid in the class who was obviously more talented than the rest. She wondered if that had been Judy, imagining all the art she might have hung up in here. The back wall was covered with shelves upon shelves of books and art supplies, towering as high as they could under sloped ceilings, and the desks were all clumped together in tables, not rows like in the rest of the school.</p><p>"It’s all the same." Judy’s mouth hung open as she gazed around in delight. She could feel this relief washing over her - the kind of safety and familiarity she hadn’t felt in so long. Jen could see it in her face. She’d changed as soon as they walked in, her eyes wide and hopeful as a seventeen-year-old.</p><p>"Spend a lot of time in here?" she asked.</p><p>Judy laughed. "I practically lived here senior year."</p><p>Something about being back in there felt like no time had passed at all, as if Miss Oakley would walk back through the door at any minute. She’d compliment Judy’s watercolors, or maybe the music she was playing, and ask how she was doing that day. She was the kind of person who could ask that every day but always really cared about the answer - the kind of person Judy always wanted to be. </p><p>"Really?" Jen was surprised, mostly due to her apparent social standing during those past few hours.</p><p>"Oh my god." She’d pulled open a door in the corner to reveal a storage closet, shelves stocked heavily with different paints and brushes and piles of fabric. "It’s all the same."</p><p>Jen looked at her like she was a crazy person. Well, not crazy, just a person staring into a dingy old supply closet as if it were made of gold.</p><p>"I had my first kiss in that closet." Judy said it so casually, as if it were a totally normal place for something like that to happen.</p><p>"Really?"</p><p>"Yep. Beth Lewis." She smiled fondly for a moment before it dawned on Jen.</p><p>"Wait, Beth… as in Beth back there?"</p><p>"Mmhmm," she nodded.</p><p>Jen raised her eyebrows. "Beth who shares a fucking facebook page with her husband, Beth?"</p><p>"That’s the one." Judy’s nose crinkled as she shrugged. "She was never really cool with the whole... gay thing."</p><p>"Wow" The smallest crease formed between Jen’s eyebrows. "But you and her?"</p><p>"Oh yeah," she grinned. "We’d make out in there all the time." Jen wasn’t sure she loved the enthusiasm behind her memory of it.</p><p>"You made out in a closet?"</p><p>Judy chuckled. "Ironic, right?"</p><p>"That’s one word for it."</p><p>"Like rain on your wedding day."</p><p>Jen laughed under her breath. "Jude-"</p><p>"What?" she protested. "She was kind of cool back then. Had a nose ring and everything." Judy smiled sadly at how strange she’d seemed back there in the gym, how every five or ten years she’d come back a little more polished and cold to touch, like the person Judy cared about had vanished forever. It shouldn't have been surprising, really. She'd started slipping away before school had even ended.</p><p>"But then when rumors started to get out about us she… uh…" Her hands dug into her dress’ pockets. "She called me a dyke and told everyone I was fucking our art teacher."</p><p>"Shit."</p><p>Judy shrugged. "It was okay."</p><p>"That little bitch." Jen’s perfect mix of concern and spite made Judy giggle. "Were you?" She was half-joking, but most rumors had to come from somewhere.</p><p>"Fucking the art teacher?" Judy’s eyes were wide. "God, no. I wish."</p><p>Jen raised her eyebrows, stopping herself from laughing.</p><p>"She was beautiful," she protested. Now that she thought about it, there was still a little love lingering deep in her mind.</p><p>Jen rolled her eyes with a knowing smile. "Of <em> course </em> you had a crush on your art teacher."</p><p>"What?" Judy asked defensively. She knew if Jen could have seen her, she’d understand. "She was pretty much the only person who was there for me that year."</p><p>She still smiled to herself at the memories: going to the art room nearly every day after school, working on her paintings, knowing she could tell Miss Oakley - or Susan, as she’d started calling her by the end of senior year - pretty much anything, and slowly but surely falling for her.</p><p>It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, either. She was the first person who’d ever really believed in Judy - made her feel like she was really creative, and even talented. Judy still missed that feeling. She’d convinced her to apply to all these art schools, even when Judy knew it would be a stretch, and said <em> I told you so </em> when she got into all of them.</p><p>Then she’d said <em> what a shame</em> it was when her mom got arrested again near the end of the year, and any hopes Judy had of somehow being able to afford college flew out of that fourth-floor window. Still, she was the only person Judy could ever talk to about her mom, or any of that. And she was really beautiful, which didn’t hurt.</p><p>"What are you doing?" She noticed Jen had wandered into the closet, deep in thought. Then she realized they’d been in silence for who knows how long while she was reliving a high school crush in her head. <em>Oops. </em></p><p>"Thinking."</p><p>"About what?" Judy leaned back on the desk opposite the closet door.</p><p>"Your first kiss." She'd admitted it before her dumb wine brain could stop herself. "It’s an important place, right?" she added hastily.</p><p>Judy shrugged. "Where was your first kiss?"</p><p>"My high school auditorium."</p><p>"Fancy." Judy looked her up and down with a grin, but Jen shook her head.</p><p>"It was a stage kiss."</p><p>"Oh." Her brow furrowed. "Does that even count?"</p><p>"I don’t know." Jen had counted it at the time, but maybe only because her fifteen-year-old self was desperate to at least have had a first kiss. She gazed around the small closet intently, the pots and brushes only spinning a little bit.</p><p>"I feel like you need a better memory in here."</p><p>Judy blinked, absolutely certain she’d heard that wrong. Or maybe she’d had too much wine and passed out, and was now deep in some ridiculous dream - <em> could you even pass out after two glasses? </em></p><p>But Jen had been the one drinking her bodyweight in red wine (<em>getting her money’s worth</em>, she said, even after Judy pointed out she hadn’t spent any money), and even she hadn’t passed out yet.</p><p>She finally stepped into the closet with a smile.</p><p>“Does my wife have any ideas?”</p><p>Maybe it was the way she grinned when she said wife, or maybe it was how close her deep brown eyes suddenly seemed, but something scared Jen for just long enough that she took a step back - right up against the wall - and shook her head.</p><p>"I can't marry someone if our first kiss was to a fucking <em> Grease </em>song."</p><p>“Technically, we kissed to a <em>Spice Girls</em> song first.”</p><p>Jen made a face as she remembered the obnoxiously loud music that hadn’t quite drowned out Beth’s annoying little voice. “Cause that's so much fucking better.”</p><p>Judy nodded slowly, pressing her lips together and staring into Jen as if she were a puzzle and she’d almost figured her out.</p><p>“Well, they were both more like a stage kiss, right?”</p><p>"Right," Jen agreed, not sure if that was Judy’s way of shutting the whole thing down. There was a pang of disappointment in her chest before she even knew what it meant.</p><p>Judy could read every expression right off her face, especially when she was drunk. She shook her head so slightly that Jen might have missed it, had her eyes not been so intently focused on the woman in front of her.</p><p>"I think..." She took one of Jen's hands, slowly interlacing their fingers. "We should get a do-over."</p><p>It was that kind of time when they both knew what needed to happen - on the tips of their tongues, only drowned out by the volume of their own hearts pounding. Judy could still remember the feeling of Jen's lips on her own, and the way she'd pulled Judy close under flashing lights. She could remember everything - all the months of glances and grabbing onto each other's arms and brushing hair out of gentle faces.</p><p>It had been there all along. The only difference was she finally let herself trust it.</p><p>Their third kiss - or first, depending on how you count it - that kiss was everything. All the time they’d shared, and every tiny hint of <em>something</em>, all rolled up into one perfect moment.</p><p>And they let that moment drag on - the seconds could have been passing into hours for all they knew - and nothing changed. Nothing could break them apart. Not even when Judy pushed Jen up against a wall of shelves, sending paintbrushes clattering all over the floor. Jen felt something poking into her back, but suddenly Judy’s tongue was brushing across her bottom lip, and the hand on her waist was tracing its way further and further down, and the butterflies thick in her stomach were finally burning into something more, and there just wasn’t space for a single other thought in her brain. She wasn’t sure if there ever would be again.</p>
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